trips

By Stephanie Miles The answer is boomers! Surprised? These may be top picks for teenagers as well, but in the new AARP Travel Trends Survey for the 50-plus, these were also two of the top items packed as the 50-plus head out for travel. I am excited to share some interesting observations from our new research on how people 50-plus will travel next year. Are you ready? Americans 50-plus spend $1.2 billion dollars a year on leisure travel, and it …

Two back-to-back international trips this year — to Germany and South Africa — gave me a good reason to brush up on my world-traveler skills. Here are the main things I think about when I’m planning a trip abroad. Phoning home. How I am going to communicate? I mainly use Skype. It’s an easy, inexpensive way to make international calls. There are similar applications for phones, including Viber and WhatsApp, that allow you to text, call and send photos and …

Family vacations run the gamut from a mountain cabin shared with mice and other creatures to a retirement celebration in Hawaii. As we jump on planes, trains and automobiles for multigenerational summer sojourns, what can we do to guarantee five-star success? I consulted three experienced family vacationers who’ve traveled near and far with adult children and grandchildren in the toddler-to-teen range. All agree that planning is essential. Who pays for what – transportation, meals, rentals, activities – must be discussed …

I love train travel. If I can choose between a plane and a train, I’ll choose a train whenever I can. It makes the transition from one place to another a gradual one, with plenty of time to watch the world go by (to say nothing of the deep nap the train puts me in). And for some trips the travel time can be about the same, or close enough, once you factor in getting to the airport an hour …

Here we are rocking and rolling down the coast out of Seattle, not with a band, but aboard an Amtrak train that bumps, jumps, sways, jerks and hurtles all at the same time, knocking me around like a dog in a shipping crate thinking that at any moment I might go airborne. I love it. It is our transportation of choice for a week in the Northwest, and now we are on our way back to the homogeny that is …